Lindsay 0, Evil Migraine 1

School is off to a great start. I have only had a few "first-year Teacher" moments, which I managed to cover up with cunning wit and skill. We even had an unplanned Teacher work-day on Monday because the air conditioning broke (that's right, I arrived at 7:30 AM and walked into a ninety-degree classroom....gross) and Students were sent home. So, all together, everything has been going pretty well....until yesterday.

On the Day of No A/C, I got tired, so when I got home, I napped. Not just your run of the mill, "Hey, I'm gonna go rest for a bit." I mean the mother of all naps: I slept hard for three solid hours. It was amazing. But when I awoke, I had a vague notion in the back of my head of the evil that was to rear its head. And lo and behold, on Tuesday morning, I rose out of my bed to find an almost fully-mature Migraine lurking in the shadows.

My Migraines are actually not that terrible. A few of the right drugs at the right time, and I am okay to function normally. Usually. But this day was the Sacred Day of the Revenge of the Headaches. They pulled out the Teenage Mutant Ninja Migraine to do the job. This thing has been building for weeks, maybe months. When it hit, I really would have opted for head amputation if it had been available (and, you know, not resulted in my certain death). Now add to this 120 Freshmen AND Algebra in the same room, and it is just disaster. I got through Tuesday with a struggle. Today, I folded. I gave up the fight and I left school early (which is ridiculously easy to do for teachers, by the way...I had no idea). But, I left the last three periods without my groundbreaking instruction on the Order of Operations. Hopefully, they can forgive me.

Bears and Interest Rates

So, since I am currently driving a Death Machine that requires extra fancy tires, I've been thinking about trading in for a new Vehicle. I always thought buying a Car would be great fun, even easy. How wrong I was.

First of all, these things are ridiculously expensive. I mean, I'm thinking about laying down some money on a private jet instead. Most of you know that I am a new addition to the grand world of Adults, and therefore have had little to no Real World financial commitments. Other than my cats, my kids, and my constant use of illeagal hallucinogens, I really haven't had to pay for all that much. I'm also one of the biggest cheapskates I know, so walking copmletely unaware up to something that has a pricetag of nineteen THOUSAND dollars is like getting attacked by a large bear...with high interest rates. Run for the hills!

On top of the crazy prices, there are the Cars themselves. I test drove a used Ford Focus. Nice Car. And relatively cheap in the Land of Cars. I liked it. BUT, the car was bright yellow. We are talking yellow like we all need to put sunglasses on. Yellow like the Po would see me coming a county away (and we all know how much the Po like me). Yellow like I could be a beacon to astronauts trying to find Texas. Bright yellow.

Anyway, I'm test driving a few more, and hopefully I'll have a fun new Vehicle here before too long with high gas mileage, room for my homies, and maybe some sweet rims. I'll keep you posted.

Jama-Lama Ding Dong

Teachers start work a few weeks before the students actually come back to school. New teachers begin work even earlier, because they have to spend a few days in workshops to find out why we are teachers (because I didn't know), how to operate a computer (because we don't live in the twenty first century where infants are born with iPods in their clenched fists), and how to manage a classroom (because apparently you can't use whips and cattle prods--who knew?).

On the first day, I am in this staff development with seven other brand new hires in our school district. The first thing we do is go around the room and tell "a little bit about ourselves." Every single person in there starts out, "Well, I am married and have 2.5 kids (I'm averaging)..." so when it comes to me, I say, "Well, I am not married and have 13 children: Jon, Josh, Jeremy, Jack, Jessica, Jennifer, Jocelyn, Jalapeno, Jeff, Jamie, Jill, Jumpin Jehosephat, and Jama-Lama Ding Dong." Judging from the looks I got, I think I will fit in nicely.

Good News: My Brother Does NOT Smoke Weed

My mom and I were out shopping the other day (yes, my mother and I do get along that well), and arrived back home a litle late. Everyone's cars were at home when we arrived, but when we got inside, we couldn't find anyone. We were yelling, looking around outside, etc, but my brother and step-father had just vanished. I was convinced that the rapture had occured (or perhaps some freaky 4400-style abduction), and that my mom and I had been left as the last two people on the planet (no, we don't get along that well).

Finally, I called my brother's cell phone and he answered, "We're in the upstairs exercise room" and hung up. Needless to say, we sprinted up the stairs (my mom won-I'm so out of shape) to see what could be so captivating. My house is organized so that you can see into the back room from the top of the stairs, but it's still several feet away. Something you should know is that the upstairs exercise room is code for "Lindsay's storage space". So, the first thing I noticed is that the room was filled with smoke, and my immediate thought was, "Well, shoot, my stuff has all caught on fire." Then I hear C-man (my step-dad) let out a howling laugh and my thoughts changed to, "Well, shoot, my family is a bunch of pot heads."

Suddenly, C-man comes storming toward the stairs holding Colby (one of our 5,000 Cats) out in front of him. The Cat is covered ear to paw with pink fuzzy stuff. I thought she had been part of a Muppet Show audition until I entered the back room and saw that there were three gaping holes in the wall. As it turns out, there had been some A/C repairmen in the house earlier, and they had gone up into the attic. Colby (who used up about 4 of her lives that day), thought that it would be a great idea to help out with the repairs and climbed up into the attic, where she got hopelessly trapped.

C-man said he was outside when he heard her meowing and couldn't figure out where it was coming from. Before too long, they realized she was IN THE WALLS, and began sawing into the drywall (away from the meows, okay? They weren't trying to decapitate her...I don't think) to get her out. After face-fulls of insulation and reaching into the great unknown that lives behind the walls, my brother and C-man realized they were close. Finally, on the third hole (which happens to be in the cieling), Colby pops out her head and is like, "Hey, what took you guys so long?"

Colby hasn't even been upstairs since the incident, and the holes are still in my walls. The moral of the story is always have plenty of soap in your bathrooms. Or something like that.

Let me just check the Teacher's Edition....

I love science. I'm not just infatuated with it. I don't want to just be friends. If I could marry science, I would.

I love science.

So, in an incredibly lucky turn of events, I have managed to secure a job next year as an algebra teacher. Yes folks, that's right, yours truly will be entering the education field armed with calculators, protractors, and cartesian coordinates! Does life get any better? (The answer there would be yes, yes it does). I don't really even remember all that much about algebra, but I figure that if I have the teacher's edition of the textbook (that huge six inch thick algebraic bible), I am good as gold. But, I am glad that I am through with the agony that is the constant job application process. I have memorized my work history, immunization record, last five hair colors, and the phone numbers and addresses of every single person with whom I have come into contact over the last three years. Needless to say, all of these people are tired of getting phone calls from people wanting to know if I can handle myself with only three different colors of overhead pens. So, hooray for the job.

As I am never satisfied, I have about 27 other possible careers lined up for the next few years. Among others, these include a photographer (if you haven't looked at the "My Flickr Photos" link on the right side of the page, you should), one of those dudes that paints the lines on the street, an Olympic table tennis player, and, of course, a rock star...or, (gasp!) I might just stick with the teaching. I am bound and determined to have at least 4 major careers by the time I am thirty years old. So, if you ever need your picture taken, some "do not pass" stripes in your driveway, a rousing game of Ping Pong, or just the best concert of your life, give me a call.